apcampbell

I hopped on the Shinkansen for quick trip to Tokyo this weekend for the JALTCALL 2007 conference, which was held at Waseda University. The conference theme was ‘CALL: Integration and Disintegration’, which, in my interpretation, attempted to examine the recent diversification of CALL practices throughout the language teaching field and the corresponding impact such diversification might have on the field’s integrity.

Indeed, professor Mike Levy addressed this very issue in his keynote, warning that as the CALL field continues to broaden, it risks losing depth unless researchers and practitioners take a longer term view of their work and make a stronger effort to collaborate with one another on projects of a similar nature. He described our individualistic tendency to ride the latest wave of cutting edge technology while ignoring older technologies, some of which may work best given the particular context in which they could be applied. One of his purposes was to remind CALL practitioners to align the goals of language learning with the strengths of each technology. New or old isn’t as important was what actually works.

Interesting, for me anyway, was Levy’s emphasis on integrating technologies students are already using in their personal lives with pedagogy and curriculum design. In this way, what happens in the classroom can become more relevant and meaningful to learners, thus creating a smoother transition between school and life outside. The blend of such technology and pedagogy will, of course, be different according to each particular learning environment, culture, and society. Here in Japan for example, mobile technology is ubiquitous - every student carries the most advanced cell phones in the world in their pockets - yet very few teachers have found ways to integrate their use in classroom settings. Unfortunately, I missed the plenary from professor Yasunari Harada, which may have shed some light on empowering students through use of technology in the classroom.

Another salient feature of the conference for me was the sharp increase in the number of presentations on Web 2.0 technologies compared to the previous two JALTCALL conferences. Whether or not this actually reflects a shift in educator understanding of the liberative potential these technologies have to offer remains to be seen, but what is more likely, in my opinion, is the case Levy described: people are riding the latest wave of hype in their educational research and practice. And surfing is fun, that’s why we do it! Experimenting with new technology is exciting, especially if we think it’s going to motivate and help our students to learn the languages we are teaching. So, unless we take a more balanced approached as a community of practice, greater depth to our understanding of how to use particular technologies will continue to elude us. Two years from now, we will have probably seen a steadily declining interest in blogs and podcasts, and an increase in focus on mobile and 3D web technologies, at least here in Japan; in other words, continued disintegration.

A party was thrown Saturday evening at a cafe on the Waseda campus, not far from the clock tower and statue of Waseda founder, Okuma Shigenobu. Conference participants mingled on a patio under a full moon while light food and drinks were served. In addition to catching up with some old friends, I also met some fellows from Kanazawa doing work multimedia Webpublishing work with design students at KIDI. They recently started a site WPMU-based site, callled Bloxi, for educators in Japan interested in doing similar such projects with their students. As the night wore on, the beer kept flowing, and then the real disintegration started. As we were ushered out of the cafe, a group of male Waseda students were having quite a rowdy pow wow of their own. Let’s just say the big bright disk in the sky wasn’t the only full moon we saw that evening.